Moments
by Kat1
Summary: Set just after Season Three's "Home Movies" -- Pacey and Joey spend one of those long afternoons on the pier, little is said, but life's all about the moments, right? Yes, fluff.


Moments

Part 1 of 1

by: Bishclone

Bishclone@ntlworld.com

Rating: PG-13, one sexual reference.

Disclaimer: WB, Kevin Williamson, anyone else who owns the show Dawson's Creek and the characters Joey Potter and Pacey Witter.

Setting: Somewhere after 'Home Movies'

Feedback: Please dissect this. I got inspired by the show, specifically Joey and Pacey interaction this season in the UK and haven't read enough fanfiction to really get a feel for how it's written. But I was sick of writing Trek and this is the result. All feedback, ruminations, flames will be addressed by me at some point.

Summary: Pacey and Joey talk about nothing. Not so much a journey inside the head of young Mr Witter but a ride on his earlobe...

~~ 

She was grinning.

That moment, she was grinning.

Reluctantly, eyes a little low, he grinned back, elbowing her in the ribs for measure and listening to the light splashes her feet made in the water. He'd come to wallow, to pick her brain because he knew she didn't want to talk about exactly what he didn't want to talk about. That odd moment of solidarity between them. She'd said 'yeah, you can stay, just don't leave a mess or expect me to talk.' He'd nodded his agreement and she led him to the pier where they'd sat for what seemed like hours, just...talking.

And this moment, they were still on the jetty, still talking. The late sun cast long shadows along the pier, loose blue shirt hanging off her shoulders, hair tied back with a pencil, smudge of grease against her cheek and that damned smile lighting her face.

She turned to him, mouth still turned in a sly grin, giving him a little push and moving a strand of hair behind her ear. "Your go," she said easily.

"Okay," he nodded, and then his eyes lit with something mischievous, nothing new in Pacey Witter, granted, but still something a little dangerous, a little unexpected, in a predictable kind of way... "I, Pacey Witter, have never, ever, done it doggy

style."

She rolled her eyes. "Never? Wow," she turned her head, feigning interest. "You learn something new every single day."

He shrugged, turning to view the whole pier, his shoulders relaxed. "You just couldn't resist could you..."

"What?" she asked, a little petulantly, her feet still swaying in the cool water of the quay.

"Here I am," he said, dramatically, "airing all my dirty and depraved sexual laundry and you just have to get in those sarcastic remarks, frankly, Miss Potter, I'm wounded."

"Mortally?" she asked, reaching down to touch the water with her fingers, wiping away a little of the grease and then sitting back up again, cleaning her fingers against her overalls.

He reached a hand to his neck, just under his chin, taking his pulse, timing it against his bare wrist, some hair and a couple of freckles, wondering when exactly he'd lost the watch that was meant to be there. "Nope," he resounded, "still alive."

She wrinkled up her nose. "Oh, that's too bad..."

"You'd cry if I died," he said, cockily, leaning back, the wooden pier creaking a little.

"Oh would I now?" she said, eyebrows high, crossing her arms, but still grinning, oh yeah, Josephine Potter was grinning.

He hated to even think it, but boy could she grin. Her eyes lit, her lips sat a little lopsided, her cheekbones pronounced, like you amused the hell out of her against her better judgement...

He hit the side of his head with his palm. Pacey Witter, full blooded American male, with enough testosterone to bottle and sell as a particularly cheap aftershave, was thinking about Joey Potter, sharp, acerbic, grating as hell and perpetually annoying, and not just Joey Potter, but more specifically Joey Potter's small, self satisfied grin. 

He sighed, 'lost cause' didn't even cover it.

"Yeah," he said, "all the pretty girls would come to my funeral, holding flowers and crying into their porcelain white handkerchiefs...Andie...well, Andie would probably be doing the

Irish jig on my coffin...but let's not go there..." She didn't grin this time, which he was thankful for, because sometimes he had stupid thoughts, like holding her hand, like flicking that piece of hair behind her ear, like brushing the back of his hand against her cheek...and then, always, every damn time, he woke up. And she was staring at him, doing that grin thing...

Joey leaned back, eyes skyward, expression like she was about to make some kind of Earth shattering decision, forehead furrowed for dramatic effect. She turned her eyes on him, decision made. "I'd send flowers..."

"You wouldn't go?" 

She looked away, neck arched, hands holding her steady against the rough wooden slats beneath her. She seemed intent on studying the reddish-gold clouds above, her eyes jumping from cloud to cloud. "Well," she began, "lot's of pretty girls and a great,

uncontrollable outpouring of emotion...just," she bit her lip, turning to meet his eyes, "would there be a buffet?"

He raised an eyebrow, shifting onto his side, his head resting on his hand. "You'd go if there was a buffet? Joey, I had you above mercenary status." Maybe he did. Maybe he didn't. Maybe he didn't give a damn what she did tomorrow, what she'd done yesterday, if

she'd just look like this for the rest of his life. A little cool, a lot aloof, with those big brown eyes not asking anything of him but his company, his, own unique and special brand of post-ironic Pacey company...

She shrugged. "Maybe you had me all wrong." She grinned again, eyes on him. 

"I mean, Pacey, you've despised me for a long time right?" He nodded. "And all that animosity that we share so easily, when we trade barbs back and forth..."

He moved to sit up a little more. "Hey, you're the barb dispenser. I'll have you know I diplomatically consider your acerbic witticisms and process a correct response."

"Which is some dumb jibe in return, right?" The piece of hair fell down back across her face and she moved it back again, her toes out of the water now and drying in the lazy heat. And she was still smiling, he often wondered, if underneath it all, underneath the hating which by a law of averages must be actually liking, she was actually, really, hating him...but then it all got confusing and he contented himself with wondering about what she wore to bed...

"But they're just too easy." 

"And lame," she added.

"And lame," he echoed, conceding. "Point being..."

She turned to him, that grin back in its rightful place. "There was a point? Aw gee, must have missed that..."

"I'm pontificating on life, the universe and everything okay? No interruptions from the audience." He looked at her pointedly, deciding, almost definitely, that she wore pyjamas to bed...oh yeah...slinky, silky, ones...

"Who said I was listening?" she asked quietly, eyes back at the sky.

"Heard that." He sat up straight, shivering a little against the wind, hearing the clunks and rattles of the boats swaying in the breeze. 

"Maybe you were meant to." She still wasn't looking at him, her eyes a little distant, out on some fluffy cloud somewhere. 

"Vague doesn't suit you."

That was true, because sometimes, make that all the time, her obliqueness infuriated him. Did she like him? Or did she want his colon as a trophy? Okay, so he wasn't wanting her to wear an 'I really dig Pacey' T shirt, although that would be nice, just a little less of the confusion and a little more of the huge brown eyes batting in his direction. Was that so much to ask? Maybe Dawson had it the right way around, maybe oblivious, where Joey was concerned, was the way to go.

"No? So, a grand career as a woman of mystery doesn't await me?"

So little did she know and so immense was the mystery that was Joey that he laughed, a little and then a lot, earning a scowl from Josephine herself.

"Am I that amusing, Pacey?" she asked, those eyes back in his direction. "You know, maybe I should just throw in any plan to go to college and start on the stand-up circuit. What do you think? Wanna be my manager?"

"As long as I get my eighty percent."

"Twenty," she countered.

"Sixty," he returned, eyes, unblinking, on hers, not letting her win

this time. 

"Thirty." She bit her bottom lip, the strand of hair slipping back over he face.

"Forty," he relented, unable to keep this up for fear of grabbing her and kissing her, which would be embarrassing when she rebuffed him, again, and cost him a fortune in the mouthwash she'd demand as compensation.

She looked at him, eyes narrowing and stretched out her hand. "Done."

He shook the hand, bowing his head graciously. "You drive a hard bargain, Potter."

"Divide and conquer," she muttered, drawing her shirt a little higher over her shoulders, shivering a little against the cold.

"What were we talking about again?"

Some kind of bird called in the distance, flying dark against the slowly sinking red sun.

"We weren't talking. We were 'bantering.'" And this time he grinned at her, his own twisted, faintly amused, 'why do I love torturing myself?' grin.

"Oh," she nodded, sitting up and drawing her knees to her chest. 

"Sounded like talking to me."

"What do you want to talk about?" The wind blew colder, biting through his loose cotton shirt, some ship's bell rang out and more birds called. 

Things were turning dark. Light was fading.

"Nothing. I don't know, what does the insatiable Pacey Witter want to talk about?"

"Nothing." In the distance, the bell sounded more furiously. 

Why did it always come down to this? To tell her. To not tell her. To let this moment, indistinguishable, in reality, from any other, drift away on the great breeze of indecision, watch it all gently fade into the fairytale sunset. What had they started talking about?

'I know,' she'd said, hands working her hair and pulling it up, 'tell me something you've never done before.'

'Easy,' he'd replied. 'I've never won at Monopoly.'

And so the game had been played, for a time at least. She'd never eaten ice cream through a straw, he'd never been to Puerto Rico, she'd never listened to any talking books, he'd never finished a jigsaw, nor had he started one for that matter, she'd never had the measles, he'd never even had the desire, just once, to appear on the Jerry Springer Show, she'd never stitched tapestry, he'd never eaten snails, she'd never left, he'd never wanted to arrive, she was always late, he'd never cared, she'd never bought bug repellent and, of course, he'd never done it doggy style...

And so, laid bare, were the lives of Josephine Potter and Pacey Witter. The dumper and the dumpee, friends who hated each other, and who somehow, for people supposedly in the latter stages of extreme disgust with one another, managed to spend a whole lot of

time together. 

And Joey, as Dawson had probably once said, was and would always be just...Joey.

And God Almighty could she grin. 

She waved a hand in front of his face. "Earth to Pacey? Experiencing difficulties talking, you know, I thought we worked through that in 5th grade, the part where the little boys actually speak to the little girls?"

"Very witty," he drawled, shaking himself a little, the wind howling against the old wooden boats.

It was all about that moment. 

"Do you want to know what I've never done?" she asked, those eyes shining even against the drawing night.

"What?" he turned to her bluntly. "What have you never done Joey?" he said, wearily, edging closer to her.

She looked at him, thoughtfully, her head cocked sideways a little, that strand of hair hanging down by her face.

It was all about that moment. That moment when the next moment wouldn't matter. 

When life had got to the point when you started doing things you'd never done before. Because having the rest of your life to do them just wouldn't cut it.

"I've never done something really stupid." The wind really blew this time, making the waves on the water lap harder against the pier. "You know, those really dumb things that you seem to have the PhD in."

And for some unknown reason, she leaned into him, head against his shoulder.

"We can fix that," he said, grinning.

That moment.

"'We?'" she said, looking up at him, those huge brown eyes batting at him, wind circling them, stinging their skin, drawing them closer.

That moment when he put his arm around her.

"Yeah," he breathed, their faces mere inches apart. "I'll teach you; it'll be fun."

That moment when she grinned at him, relaxed in his arms, hair falling from he pencil and dancing in the wind.

"Guarantee?" she whispered, tilting her head.

That moment when he brought his hand to her hair.

"Money back if not completely satisfied."

That moment when he kissed her.

That moment when she kissed him back.

That moment when the next moment didn't matter.

Because next moment, she was still kissing him.

Fin~


End file.
